Terrorists using WhatsApp as a secret place to hide, UK Home Secretary claims

WhatsApp is facing the heat for not cooperating with the authorities in the London attack investigation. The popular messenger app has turned down the authorities' request to give out the details of the last conversation of Westminster attacker Adrian Ajao making UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd furious.

She said that she is prepared to "call time" on internet companies that provide terrorists with a secret place to hide. As WhatsApp's messages are encrypted end-to-end, they can only be seen by the sender and the receiver. Even the company itself cannot decrypt the messages. Rudd says that this is "completely unacceptable" and the company should recognize its responsibility towards the society.

She also added that it should come up with a way to gain access to the content of the conversations in critical situations like thisMany security agencies had called the end-to-end encryption of WhatsApp as a potential security threat after it was launched last year.

Reportedly, Rudd has summoned representatives from WhatsApp, Facebook, Google, and other online firms for an event for discussing the matter.

Rudd is basically asking WhatsApp to give the government access to all messages if a situation like this arises. Although this can be helpful in times like these, authorities can use it for spying on common people as well. Nowadays, where hacking is prevalent, the absence of proper privacy tools could lead to invasion of privacy.

WhatsApp had also previously refused to cooperate with the authorities in Brazil during a criminal investigation resulting in the app getting banned in the country for a few times.